Remember when these Dodgers were going to win 120 games or at least threaten the all-time record of 116 wins in a regular season?
Those were simpler, less complicated times.
All the offseason and spring hyperbole ran head on into reality again this year with injuries and unexpected slumps running roughshod over a roster that really was the deepest in baseball when the 2025 season began.
And that has left the Dodgers entering the post-All-Star break portion of the season … leading the National League West for the ninth time in the past 11 full seasons, by five games or more for the fifth time in the past eight full seasons, with the best record in the NL for the fourth time in those eight seasons and still well-positioned to become the first World Series champion to repeat since the New York Yankees of 1998-2000.
“We’re in first place after the first half. I don’t know what more – like, first place by 50 games?” first baseman Freddie Freeman said of reality matching expectations.
“First place is first place.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made it clear that was not enough to make him happy. Asked if he thought the team could be satisfied with the way the first half went, he said, “I think you can – I don’t think I’m in that camp.”
“I think the win-loss, the standings are great,” Roberts said. “But I think there’s just a lot of improvement that we need to do, we need to be better at.”
There is reason to expect they will. The Dodgers have had a better winning percentage after the All-Star break than before in seven of their eight previous full seasons under Roberts, posting a collective .663 winning percentage in the second half of the past six full seasons.
“I think it’s all of it,” Roberts said when asked what he expects to improve. “The pitching, there’s some baserunning things, defense at times. It’s been steady, but the pitching, the offense we gotta get on track. I always expect more from our guys, and they expect the same thing.
“Good first half. But yeah, we should want to get better.”
The starting rotation should be the first area to see improvement.
Injuries forced the Dodgers to use 16 different starting pitchers during the first half (including bullpen games). Kiké Hernandez (five) and Miguel Rojas (four) both pitched in more games than Blake Snell (two), the Dodgers’ big offseason acquisition.
Tyler Glasnow returned from his shoulder injury to start once before the All-Star break and Snell should be back from his shoulder problem soon. He made his second start on a minor-league rehabilitation assignment on Tuesday in Arizona, going three innings. Snell is expected to make one more rehab start before the Dodgers will consider returning him to the starting rotation for the first time since April 2.
Shohei Ohtani’s return to pitching has been a slow process and also figures to be even more – to use the favorite word of Dodgers management when discussing Ohtani the pitcher – “additive” in the second half. He went three innings in his most recent start and said he expects to increase his workload in the second half. That means the Dodgers could be in position to choose from All-Stars Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Clayton Kershaw, Glasnow and Snell, Ohtani and his most recent piggyback partner Emmet Sheehan for a postseason rotation with Roki Sasaki and Dustin May as wild cards.
That might be enough to keep Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman’s wish list item of not having to trade for starting pitching at the deadline. The prognosis for the bullpen is not as bright, however.
Evan Phillips won’t be back until next season after Tommy John surgery. Michael Kopech is optimistically projected to return from his knee surgery before the end of the season – but how effective will he be after nearly a full season of inactivity? Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates were veteran additions before this season but neither has been particularly trustworthy so far.
All of that makes the bullpen the most likely area for Friedman and General Manager Brandon Gomes to focus on as the July 31 trade deadline approaches. There is a long list of potential targets – Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase, Minnesota’s Jhoan Durán or Griffin Jax, Baltimore’s Felix Bautista and St. Louis’ Ryan Helsley for starters. None will come cheap.
The Dodgers compensated for their pitching uncertainties by leading MLB in runs scored before the break and the National League in home runs, batting average, on-base percentage and OPS. An MVP-level season from catcher Will Smith, more production than they could have expected from outfielder Andy Pages and another elite season from Ohtani (only a step down from his 50/50 MVP season in 2024) were important factors.
But there were disturbing signs in the weeks before the break. Freeman, Teoscar Hernandez and even Ohtani (.209 since his first pitching start on June 16) were slumping for extended periods.
“It’s the ebbs and flows of a baseball season,” Freeman said dismissively. “It’s going to happen.”
It has been much more ebb than flow for shortstop Mookie Betts, who is having the worst offensive season of his career with an OPS of .629 since mid-May.
But a lot can change between now and October. A year ago at this time, the NL Championship Series MVP (Tommy Edman) wasn’t a Dodger yet and the player who would throw the last pitch of the World Series (Walker Buehler) was on the injured list.
